The present invention relates to the field of garage doors. More specifically, the present invention relates to wood overlay sectional carriage house garage doors.
A typical overhead garage door is constructed from a plurality of door sections, which are hinged together and supported from a track system with rollers attached to opposite ends of the door sections. The rollers generally allow the door to be moved from a vertically oriented closed position to a substantially horizontal open position. Electrically powered garage door openers are often used with the overhead garage door so that a driver may conveniently open and close the door from within a vehicle.
With regard to residential applications, an overhead garage door is generally either eight or sixteen feet wide. Typically, such a door includes four horizontally oriented sections, each of which is about eight or sixteen feet long and twenty-one inches high. For example, a single car residential garage may have an eight foot wide by seven foot high door. Likewise, a two car residential garage may have a single sixteen foot wide door by seven foot high door or two eight foot wide by seven foot high doors.
Some of the first doors made for garages were one piece barn doors that operated as large swinging or sliding doors. The nostalgic design of these doors is replicated in a sectional carriage house door. A sectional carriage house door functions like a typical overhead garage door in that it moves on a track and roller system to open and close the door. However, the appearance of the sectional carriage house door simulates the historic swing type doors used in early automobile shelters. These carriage house garage doors are particularly desirable for use with older homes to maintain the historic design of the home while gaining the convenience of the conventional overhead garage door. Carriage house garage doors are also desirable with newer homes for enhancing the overall appearance of the garage and consequently the house.
Sectional carriage house garage doors have been manufactured for many years with various types of wood siding applied over the door sections. By convention, one by six tongue and groove cedar or redwood boards and/or exterior woodsman siding are applied to a 1.375 or 1.75 inch thick wood flush door section or to a wood open frame door section. The wood siding material is laid out over the door section and stapled to the flush door section or open frame door section.
More recently, manufacturers have been applying the siding to a steel open frame garage door section. This is performed by laying the siding on the floor in a manner that creates the final carriage house door design. The steel open frame door section is then attached to the siding with screws. Once the steel door sections have been secured to the siding, the entire door is cut into sections. Polyvinylchloride (PVC) insulation is then added to the core of the steel frame door sections to cover the screws.
Unfortunately, both the wood and steel door applications have numerous problems. These problems are caused by the weight of the wood overlay, which typically adds one hundred to two hundred pounds to the overall weight of the sectional carriage house door. In particular, the wood frame door section and the steel frame door section often lack the structural integrity or the strength to adequately support the added weight of the wood siding. Thus, the carriage house door has a limited life.
In addition, the heavy prior art carriage house door requires reinforced hardware to support this added weight. Furthermore, the thickness of the door increases relative to the thickness of the wood siding, thus creating additional framing, and again, hardware problems. Many manufacturers do not understand the problems incurred with the added weight, and consequently supply the consumer with hardware that is insufficient for supporting the door. This could lead to an inconvenient situation in which the door repeatedly falls out of the door tracks. Moreover, the hardware components, such as the rollers, connection points, springs, or the tracks themselves could fail causing property damage and/or injury.
In addition to the mechanical problems caused by the excessive weight of the sectional carriage house door, the sectional carriage house door suffers from problems associated with aesthetic appearance. In particular, the use of four twenty-one inch horizontally oriented sections to form the carriage house door results in three horizontal lines created at the section joints. These horizontal lines at the section joints detract from the appearance of the door, which is contrary to the objectives of maintaining the historic design and enhancing the overall appearance of the garage.
Accordingly, it is an advantage of the present invention that a wood overlay section for a carriage house garage door is provided.
It is another advantage of the present invention that a wood overlay section is provided to form a carriage house garage door that is relatively lightweight and structurally sound.
It is yet another advantage of the present invention that the wood overlay section is provided to form an aesthetically pleasing carriage house door.
The above and other advantages of the present invention are carried out in one form by a wood overlay section for a carriage house garage door. The wood overlay section has a section substructure including a first layer of sheet metal, a second layer of sheet metal, and an insulating core having first and second sides. The first layer of sheet metal is coupled to the first side of the insulating core, and the second layer of sheet metal is coupled to the second side of said insulating core. Wood siding is coupled to the first layer of sheet metal by bonding the wood siding to the first layer using an adhesive and by stapling the wood siding to the first layer.
The above and other advantages of the present invention are carried out in another form by a wood overlay carriage house garage door. The wood overlay carriage house garage door includes first, second, and third wood overlay sections each having a height of substantially twenty-eight inches. Each of the first, second, and third wood overlay sections has a section substructure including a first layer of sheet metal, a second layer of sheet metal, and an insulating core having first and second sides. The first layer of sheet metal is coupled to the first side of the first insulating core, and the second layer of sheet metal is coupled to the second side of the first insulating core. Wood siding is coupled to the first layer of sheet metal by bonding the wood siding to the first layer using an adhesive and by stapling the wood siding to the first layer. The first, second, and third wood overlay sections function cooperatively to yield an overall height of the carriage house garage door of substantially eighty-four inches.